idiographic and nomothetic

• P: a strength of the idiographic approach is its focus on the individual

  E: humanistic psychologists and qualitative psychologists in the latter half of the last century felt that there was too much emphasis on measurement and that psychologists had lost sight of what it was to be human. Allport argued that its only by knowing the person as an individual that we can predict what the person will do in any situation

  L: this suggests that the focus on individuals can provide us with a more complete understanding
• P: a limitation of the idiographic approach is that it is more time consuming

  E: both approaches are based on large amounts of data, but one is in terms of collecting large amounts of data about one person (idiographic) and the other is in terms of number of people (nomothetic). collecting large amounts of data from a group of people takes time but is quicker because once you've devised a questionnaire of psychological test, data can be generated and processed quickly

  L: this means that the idiographic approach is less efficient when it comes to data collection
• While the nomothetic approach is generalisable, it can lose the uniqueness of human experience. For example, reducing depression to a score on a questionnaire may ignore personal meaning, context, and lived experience, which can be vital for understanding and treatment.